Getting started

The whole setup takes about 60 seconds per provider. Here’s what to do.

Step 1: Create an account

Sign up at app.backupmydns.com. The free tier gives you 1 domain with daily backup checks and 30 days of retention. No credit card required.

Step 2: Connect a DNS provider

From your dashboard, click Add Provider, pick your DNS provider, and enter read-only API credentials. BackupMyDNS never writes to your zones — it only reads records.

Below are the specific steps for each supported provider.

Cloudflare

  1. Go to the Cloudflare dashboard and navigate to My Profile > API Tokens.
  2. Click Create Token and create a custom token with the Zone:Read permission. Scope it to all zones, or select specific zones if you prefer.
  3. Copy the token and paste it into BackupMyDNS.

AWS Route53

  1. In the AWS console, create an IAM user or role with a policy that allows route53:ListHostedZones and route53:ListResourceRecordSets.
  2. Generate an access key pair for that user.
  3. Paste the Access Key ID and Secret Access Key into BackupMyDNS.

DNSimple

  1. In your DNSimple account, go to Automation > OAuth Applications — or use the one-click OAuth flow directly from BackupMyDNS.
  2. Authorize read-only access when prompted. That’s it.

GoDaddy

  1. Go to the GoDaddy Developer Portal and navigate to API Keys.
  2. Generate a production API key and secret.
  3. Paste both the key and secret into BackupMyDNS.

Step 3: Your first backup

Once you connect a provider, BackupMyDNS discovers your zones automatically and runs the first backup immediately. Within seconds you’ll see a full snapshot of every record in every zone on that provider.

There’s nothing else to configure. If the credentials are valid, the backup is already done.

Step 4: Explore your backups

With your first snapshot in place, you can:

  • Browse zone snapshots — see the complete state of every zone at any point in time.
  • View diffs — when a change is detected, BackupMyDNS stores a diff showing exactly what was added, removed, or modified.
  • Download zone files — export any snapshot as a standard BIND zone file, ready for import into any DNS provider.

What happens next

BackupMyDNS checks for changes on your plan’s schedule: daily on Free, hourly on Pro ($14/mo), and every 10 minutes on Business ($49/mo). When something changes, a new snapshot is captured and the diff is stored automatically.

You don’t need to do anything from here. If a record gets deleted, misconfigured, or overwritten, you’ll have the full history to restore from.

Optional: Fort Knox mode

If you’re on Pro or Business and want zero data stored on our infrastructure, enable Fort Knox mode in your account settings. When enabled, BackupMyDNS emails you each backup and immediately deletes it from our systems. Your zone data is AES-256 encrypted in transit, and nothing persists on our side.

Need help?

Email us at hey@backupmydns.com. We read every message.

For more details, visit our support page.